Alex Bowman doesn't back down from 'silver spoon' comments about Austin Dillon
Alex Bowman clearly doesn’t have much of a friendship with Austin Dillon.
Bowman and Dillon made contact in the second stage of Saturday’s race at Richmond and Dillon ended up with some damage on the left rear of his car. In return, he tried to spin Bowman out a few laps later.
You can see how it played out over the teams’ in-car radios in the video below. After Dillon hit Bowman back on the instruction of his grandfather and team owner Richard Childress and crew chief Danny Stockman, the driver of the No. 88 car said he wanted to “shove that silver spoon [Dillon’s] been fed on his whole life up his ass.”
Bowman is not backing down from what he said, either. He was asked about the comments on Friday ahead of Sunday’s race at Charlotte and said he doesn’t have a relationship with Dillon.
“I don’t think there is a relationship there. And what the comment was, you heard it. I said what I said,” Bowman said. “So, I was obviously frustrated with that situation but I think it hurt his day more than it hurt mine. We kind of ran where we were going to run anyway. It’s just frustrating. I got ran all the way to the inside wall down the front straightaway and then just turned. It is what it is. I’m not immediately worried about it. You typically don’t see him at these places anyway.”
Dillon ended up finishing in 22nd, a place ahead of Bowman. Both drivers finished four laps down.
Dillon also had the chance to respond to Bowman’s Friday comments and took full advantage to add some levity to the whole situation.
Silver spoon? @austindillon3 says nah, because “I’m a spork guy, anyway. Big spork guy.”
— Jeff Gluck (@jeff_gluck) September 27, 2019
It’s, of course, not the first time a spoon reference has been made about Dillon. And the original spoon comment probably served as Bowman’s inspiration.
In 2013, Kevin Harvick famously was upset with Dillon’s brother Ty during a Truck Series race and said the Dillons were one of the big reasons he was leaving Richard Childress Racing for Stewart-Haas Racing. The Dillon brothers drove for Richard Childress Racing throughout their NASCAR careers ahead of the Cup Series. And while Ty is now driving for Germain Racing, the team has a technical alliance with RCR.
“[No.] 3 just dumped me. Exactly the reason I’m leaving RCR because you’ve got those kids coming up and they’ve got no respect for what they do in this sport,” Harvick said nearly six years ago. “They’ve had everything fed to them with a spoon.”
After Harvick left RCR, Austin Dillon moved to the Cup Series after winning a Truck Series title and an Xfinity Series title. He inherited Harvick’s ride and Harvick’s No. 29 was rebranded to the No. 3 car. Dillon has driven that number ever since and has won two races — the Coca-Cola 600 and the Daytona 500 — in his career. However, 2019 is the worst year of his career so far as RCR has struggled with the 2019 rules changes. Dillon is 22nd in the points standings; he’s never finished below 21st in the standings in each of his first five years in the Cup Series.
His teammate Daniel Hemric is 25th in the standings and won’t be retained by the team for 2020.
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports
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